Voice Search & Search Syntax related questions answered by Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts, Google’s webspam team head, faced a number of questions this time related to SEO and as usual, he has an answer for every single one of them.

The first question he dealt with was related to “Website Downtime”. A user was curious to know whether SEO and rankings will suffer if a particular website is down for an entire day. Cutts answered that if a said website is down for a brief period, then it should not be a major concern to press the panic button. It doesn’t indicate that the world is coming to an end for them if they get a Googlebot notification that their website is down. This can be cured as soon as the website’s server pulls up fairly. However, problems will start to accumulate if the said website is down for closed to two weeks. It is important for Google to maintain their search result’s integrity, so as not to lead a visitor to a website that is already down. In short, one needs to resolve their website’s downtime issues quickly if they want to maintain their website’s rank.

The next question was related to voice search. A user asked Cutts that whether query syntax changed a lot with the rise of voice search. Cutts answered that as far as search syntax for voice search is concerned, it is a lot more natural. It is less likely for people to use search operators and keywords. They speak in the same way as one normally speaks, with questions being often asked in the search queries.

Cutts added further that the search engine major is looking forward in accommodating voice search in a better way in future. Case for example, when one is using “and” in their searches, the results will be getting automatically narrower as Google already knows that the user is specifically searching for something. If more words are used by someone in voice search, they are more likely to be getting a lot more results. Query syntax, in short, has changed a lot in the past couple of years. Nowadays, even images can be used for their search. Cutts does not think that this evolution to stop anytime soon, meaning that each and every SEO professionals need to be at the peak of their game, continually.